Elisabeth was confused and unreliable in the months before she died in August. More than once, she relapsed with both alcohol and marijuana, and I had to use my professional relationship with Villa Vinternatt’s founder for leverage to allow her to stay on the program after breaking the strict policy on total sobriety. She also showed worrying signs of distorted memory and reality perception. She’d ruminate over her relationship with Andreas and make it sound like it was the greatest love story in the history of the world, when in reality it was a disastrous five-year descent into hell, defined by an endless cycle of co-dependency, addiction and chaos. She’d paint and draw obsessively, and her incredible talent was clear for everyone to see, but her art gave an insight into the turbulence of her mind – she’d paint blood and violence and that jungle she wasn’t ever able to leave behind.

She began to say worrying things, and at times she took her underlying anger out on me. One of the last times I saw her, she called me a ‘Fucking golden girl who lives in a fucking golden bubble with my fucking golden husband,’ and I had to work hard, then, at controlling my own reactions to her. I knew that what she said really had nothing to do with me or my life, and everything to do with how deeply disappointed and ashamed she was about the mess she’d made of her own life. I knew that it wasn’t my fault that she couldn’t find healing and peace.

Loving Elisabeth in those last days required merging friendship with therapy, but I loved Elisabeth; she was my best friend in spite of everything, and I tried everything in my power to save her. I really did.

I feel overwhelmed with dread thinking about Elisabeth and how she ended her life, and the thought of Leah insinuating herself into her life is unbearable. Highly unstable herself, she might have directly contributed to the way things turned out for Elisabeth. Looking back, I can see how she might have influenced Elisabeth; toward the end, she went from being seemingly content and more at peace than she had been for many years, to becoming so angry and so bitter. At the time I suspected that her treatment at Villa Vinternatt was making her question everything and that her new pursuit of art had brought all those feelings to the surface. I tried to redirect her focus to the future, to everything she could still become. But she refused to let go.

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